Politics. Certain passport holders have to pay high prices for entering certain countries. The famous blue American passport has its pros and cons because of different agreements with various countries. The U.S. makes it difficult for citizens in some countries to get a visa and therefore, those countries make Americans pay a pretty penny — or Benjamin or two for a visa into their country. 

So far on our South American tour, we’ve had to pay for three visas.

1. Paraguay charges Americans $160 for a visa. You can get a visa on arrival. It’s good for 10 years. Your hundred dollar bills must be in crisp condition and be newer than the year 2000.
2. Bolivia charges Americans $160 for a visa. You can get a visa on arrival. It’s good for 10 years. Hundred dollar bills must be the same as above. Be sure you have your hotel reservation and exit itinerary from Bolivia. They will want to know how long you will be in their country. (We were surrounded by several immigration officers who wanted this information from us at 4am — that's another story. Subscribe here to be updated about our Bolivian stories.)
3. Brazil has a new online visa process and only charges $40 for a visa (plus about $5 for processing). It’s good for two years. 

Brazil still charges Americans $160 for a 10-year visa, but you have to go through the embassy and it takes a couple of weeks to get it. 

Who wants to pay $160 for a visa in addition to flights, hotels and attractions. At the beginning of this year, the Brazilian Department of Tourism noticed a huge decline in tourism along with Zika and other factors and decided to make the process easier. The Tourism Ministry is looking to see an increase of 25 percent with this new change. "The facilitation of visas aims to reduce bureaucracy and, above all, to boost the entry of foreign tourists into Brazil," Tourism Minister Marx Beltrão said to BrazilGovNews. 

Brazil wasn’t on our South American Itinerary, but because we were going to Iguazu Falls, we found out after talking to many people who had already been, that the Brazilian side is worth it. And we met some Americans who told us about the new process of getting a Brazilian visa.

Brazilian E-Visa Process for U.S. Citizens

Brazil is now offering a two-year e-visa for citizens of the U.S., Japan, Australia and Canada for $40 (there is about a $5 processing fee). It’s pretty straight forward and only takes a three to seven days to complete the process. It’s worth the hoops that you have to jump though for the new visa requirements. You have to have a few items in order to submit an application online. Be sure the sizes of your electronic image files are under 700 mb. 

1. Clear photos or scanned copies of your passport bio page, which include your signature page, photo and all of your passport information. 
2. A recent passport photo jpeg. 
3. If you’re applying for your baby or minor, you’ll need to fill out a consent letter and sign it. They provide this. 

The website gives you very good examples of the photos and scanned copies you need to submit. It also gives the forms you need to fill out for minors and babies. We had to retake photos of our passports and ourselves and resubmit them because they wanted a recent photo of me and a clear photo of Samindra. This took an extra day or so. 

The website operates very slowly. So be patient. I think because of this, there are a number third party sites offering this service for $100. I’m not sure if these are scams.

We were in Uruguay when we applied for our Brazilian e-visas and were supposed to go to Iguazu Falls in about eight or nine days. So, we were a little nervous that we weren't going to get it in time. Plus, we had to resubmit files and that took another day or so. We received our e-visas the day before we arrived in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay where we crossed to border to Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. All we had to do was print our e-visas and show it with our passport. Subscribe here to get that story. 

If you have any questions, please write them in the comments below or feel free to contact us.